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Biographies in Context is a database that can give you a lot more or different sources of biographical information than just book form.  It lays out side by side all the published matter they have available in any format, on people in history including the current day.

Watch the video above or read on to see how to access it:

Biographies in Context is a database that can give you a lot more or different sources of biographical information than just book form.  It lays out side by side all the published matter they have available in any format, on people in history including the current day.

Watch the video above or read on to see how to access it: 

From our website, go to Resources, then you can either click “People” or “All Resources” which lists everything we have alphabetically.

Then choose “Biography in Context.”  If you’re in the building, it will take you straight to the database; if you’re at home, you can log in with your library card.

You can do a simple person search or an advanced search that lets you choose what kind of sources you want to limit to. 

You’ll see an overview, along with print biographies, any available news and magazine articles, academic journal articles, audio, and whatever else they have on the person. 

Related searches will show you other people you might be interested in based on your search.

A few tips:

• Like other Gale databases, it will give you the correct citation for the source in all of the common citation formats.  A perfect tool to assist with school papers!
• If you have a biography assignment but I don’t know who you want to study: click “browse people” and scroll through a huge list or get a smaller list by choosing a topic in the pull down menu.
• You can alternatively click “person search” and leave the name blank, filling in the parameters for what you’re looking for, and find results for people you might want to research.
• Advanced search is similar and gives you more parameters for what format of material you want to limit to.  For example, you might only want a magazine article with pictures, or just an interview, or just a published book.
• Or maybe you’re having trouble finding or remembering the source of something you saw/heard about a person.  This database could give you a good lead, narrow down what you are looking for, and offer more content you might be interested in.

If you want a biography, you can certainly ask a reference librarian (call 847-376-2841 or email askalibrarian@dppl.org) and we’ll get you a biography.  But if you want to dig a little further, try this database out!